History Main / BleakLevel

* ''VideoGame/PizzaTower'' is normally a really goofy and over-the-top game that features very little scares. But one level in the final world, titled 'Don't Make a Sound' is a creepy run-down pizzeria with HostileAnimatronics that activate if you get spotted by certain enemies. The music is also a lot more ambient and creepy than any other track in the game. [[spoiler:And then, at the end [[CatharsisFactor you grab a gun and shoot the hell out of the animatronics]]]].

** ''VideoGame/TalesOfXillia2'' has another ship, which couples this as a very harsh CallBack to the [[VideoGame/TalesOfXillia previous]] game, right down to a similar, bleak design. The player can and needs to save various injured [=NPCs=] within a time limit, one of your party members is having an [[CloningBlues existential crisis]] and the chapter ultimately ends with [[spoiler: Alternate Milla's death, similar to Milla's death above]].

* ''VideoGame/ShantaeAndThePiratesCurse has Mud Bog Island, which especially clashes with the silliness of the previous Tan Line Island. Mud Bog Island has a bleak atmosphere teeming with sludge-like monsters. Deeper into the island is an entrance to the Village of Lost Souls and eventually the Oubliette of Suffering, a FireAndBrimstoneHell dungeon where only the nastiest of souls reside to be tortured. Another example would be the return to Scuttle Town after freeing the Pirate Master. The skies are in perpetual darkness and the route to the Sequin Land Palace replaces the starter enemies with even tougher monsters.

** [[spoiler: [[IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace The Deadlands,]] ''the'' scariest area in the game. It's just an abandoned {{human|sAreCthulhu}} house - except it's full of EldritchAbomination BossInMookClothing enemies as well as the Dead Lander Omega, a giant one-eyed monster that drops enemies on you whenever it sees you, seemingly for no reason other than [[JustToyingWithThem its own amusement]]. [[NothingIsScarier The absence of people is]] [[ParanoiaFuel never explained.]]]]

[[folder:Roguelike]]
* ''VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac'' doesn't exactly have the most chipper levels (especially with the overall bleaker visuals in ''[[UpdatedRerelease Rebirth]]'',) but the Dark Room, a series of crumbling platforms floating in a black void, takes the cake. [[http://ridiculon.bandcamp.com/track/devoid The music that plays throughout]] certainly doesn't help, either.
* Most of the islands of ''VideoGame/SunlessSea'' strike a balance between surreal irony and gothic horror. Not so for Kingeater's Castle, an abandoned temple of sacrifice and death that marks the southeast corner of the Unterzee. An "old voracity" lives here, surrounded by half-sunken colossi carved in the shapes of drowning victims. The only trace of humour is that your Captain titles the port report "everything is horrible"... then scratches it out for being too {{narm}}y and tries again.
[[/folder]]

* VideoGame/OdinSphere has the Netherworld, a bleak wasteland covered in skulls where the [[BlackoutBasement lights regularly go out]] and skeleton monsters, tentacles, ghosts and grim reaper-like enemies roam.
* The [[spoiler:purified]] zones in ''VideoGame/{{OFF}}''. Everything is completely white with black outlines, all electronics are broken down, none of the signs are readable, there's nobody but demonic [[CreepyDoll doll-like monsters]] inhabiting, and the music is a mix between an ominous music box, whispers, and someone banging on a door crying for help.
* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'':

* The entirety of ''VideoGame/{{Dishonored}}'' is rather bleak, but it becomes particularly dark during the section of the game where the Loyalists betray Corvo and leave him for dead in the Flooded District of Dunwall, which he then must find a way to escape from while encountering all of the other people who have been dumped there.

[[folder:Survival Horror]]
* The Morgue section of Stage 5 of ''VideoGame/{{Illbleed}}'' perfectly showcases just how terrible the titular park really is. Despite the name, it's not really a "morgue" as much as it is a series of catwalks suspended over an ''olympic swimming pool-sized pit filled to the brim with the bodies of dead park visitors.''
[[/folder]]

* ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsI'' is already bleak enough, with every place infected with deacy and ruin, but these areas take it up a notch.
** The Kiln of the First Flame. The sky is stuck in an infinite dusk, the landscape is a rusted gray, and there are only about four or five enemies despite the large size of the area. It really hits its mark considering that it actually unnerves the player even though every other level wasn't exactly sunshine and flowers either.
** The Painted World of Ariamis also counts, being a ruined castle on a freezing mountain, infested with undead and Crow Demons. [[spoiler: Subverted when you meet Priscilla, when she explains this place was meant to be a refuge for the unwanted]].
** New Londo Ruins. The whole area is dim, drab, and crumbling. Regular Hollows cower and rock back and forth. [[spoiler:Then you get to the lower area after draining the water and find out it's full of ''bodies''.]] Then you get to the very bottom of the area -- the Abyss.

* ''VideoGame/HollowKnight'' has plenty of very bleak locations, like Deepnest, a dark underground cavern overloaded with BigCreepyCrawlies; the Howling Cliffs, a desolate cliffside with intense winds said to drive people mad; Kingdom's Edge, another desolate wasteland covered in ash-like cast-off pieces of the Wyrm's former shell, with a colosseum high above it from which dead gladiators are constantly falling out of; the Ancient Basin, an ancient ruin even among ancient ruins, with no music at all and -- after acquiring a certain item -- [[NothingIsScarier not even any ambience]]); and [[spoiler: The Abyss, a sealed pit far below the Ancient Basin and the birthplace of both the protagonist and the eponymous Hollow Knight, covered in dead bodies and utter black pools of pure void that thrash about when the player gets near.]]

* ''VideoGame/AliceMadnessReturns'' is not what one would call a cheerful game, not by a long shot. There's fiery destruction, creepy BlobMonster armies, and BodyHorror everywhere. But then you get to the Dollhouse. Creepy and depressing doesn't begin to cover it and it reveals just what the hell has been going on [[spoiler:with Alice's orphanage]]. Even experienced gamers had to swallow at that one.

* ''VideoGame/TheSpongeBobMovieGame'': Almost every level from "Bubble Blowing Baby Hunt" onwards has noticeably darker and unsettling environments, even when they're based on lighthearted parts of the movie (e.g. "Now That We're Men", which plays the depths of the trench for grotesque horror rather than comedy). To wit, "Bubble Blowing Baby Hunt" takes place in the Thug Tug, a seedy and dimly-lit bar full of rugged brutes, "I'll Let You Pet Mr. Whiskers" is set in a field littered with the skeletons of the Frogfish's victims, "Rock Slide" and "Now That We're Men" take place in a dark trench full of ghoulish monsters, "Shell City, Dead Ahead" and "Name's Dennis" are set in a dingy scrapyard, and "Welcome to Planktopolis... Minions" and "Drive of the Knucklehead-[=McSpazitron=]" are set in a dystopian version of Bikini Bottom full of smoggy skies, lava, spikes, heavy machinery, and oppressive monuments.

* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'':

Such a choice may foreshadow something scary, mark a place of evil, or denote the DarkestHour for your character. Sister tropes include the WombLevel for levels made out of flesh in an otherwise un-fleshy game and BigBoosHaunt for the definitely "scary" and "creepy" part of a Bleak Level. See also VileVillainSaccharineShow for when there's that one boss that seems out of place. See also DarkestHour.

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' has Hyrule Castle and the surrounding area. While the four Divine Beasts that serve as the other main dungeons can be a bit ominous, what with the backstories about how they were corrupted and the {{Ma|deOfEvil}}lice filling their interiors, they're still brightly lit locations with musical tracks that mix ominousness with triumph. Hyrule Castle, however, is a bleak ruin dripping in Malice, all the plant life in the vicinity is grey and dead, the town at its base is sufficiently demolished to the point of barely being recognizable as a former settlement, deadly [[MechaMooks Guardians]] are ubiquitous, and all around are subtle signs of the massacre that took place a century before. There's also a more quotidian level of bleakness with [[spoiler:the diaries of Princess Zelda and her father King Rhoam, found at their respective desks in the castle. Both record how they felt plenty of fear, and Zelda plenty of shame, over Zelda's inability to awaken the sealing power needed to defeat Calamity Ganon, and how this was leading to their relationship being badly strained due to King Rhoam's tough approach to guiding Zelda's training. And the final entries of each were written the morning of the day Ganon returned.]]

%%* In ''VideoGame/{{Okami}}'', the Sunken Ship, Yoshpet Forest, Sei-an City under the Blight, and most dungeons qualify, especially the last one. %%Example needs context so it can make sense on its own.

* ''VideoGame/ProfessorLaytonAndTheAzranLegacy'' features multiple playable locations, most of which display the cheerful, lively atmosphere that is characteristic in the ''VideoGame/ProfessorLayton'' series. But then Layton and company arrive Mosinnia, a bleak city with a twilight sky and alleys approaching ruin in which nearly all adults are suffering from a mysterious disease that has put them to a seemingly-endless sleeṕ, and it's up to the main characters to figure out the cause. Even the music is dreary.

Such a choice may foreshadow something scary, mark a place of evil, or denote the DarkestHour for your character. Sister tropes include the WombLevel for levels made out of flesh in an otherwise un-fleshy game and BigBoosHaunt for the definitely "scary" and "creepy" part of a Bleak Level. See also VileVillainSaccharineShow for when there's that one boss that seems out of place. See also DarkestHour and SurpriseCreepy.

* ''VideoGame/AliceMadnessReturns'' is not what one would call a cheerful game, not by a long shot. There's fiery destruction, creepy BlobMonster armies, and BodyHorror everywhere. But then you get to the Dollhouse. Creepy and depressing doesn't begin to cover it and it reveals just what the hell has been going on with Alice's [[spoiler:orphanage]]. Even experienced gamers had to swallow at that one.
* ''VideoGame/AnUntitledStory'' has The Bottom: The very bottom of the game world with barely any music, no enemies and no means of escape aside from [[WarpWhistle using a]] SavePoint. There is, however, a HeartContainer and entrance to [[LevelInTheClouds another definitely less scary area]].

* In ''VideoGame/CaveStory'', Mimiga Village, specifically when you return there after escaping the Labyrinth. All of the inhabitants of the village are missing, and the level music is replaced by an ominous, minor-key song, "Quiet". The "Egg Corridor?" ([[spoiler:The Egg Corridor post-destruction]]) counts as well.

* In ''VideoGame/DisneyPrincessEnchantedJourney'', Cinderella's world is this. It's AlwaysNight, most of the colors are a muted blue, time is frozen everywhere, there's a creepy forest to traverse, you go to her old home, which is deserted, and at one point the Bogs freeze Cinderella herself, making it the only point where they directly attack a princess.
* ''VideoGame/DogsLife'' for [=PS2=]: All levels so far have been, if not all of them cheerful, and except some creepy moments like the dog catcher's doberman chasing you around and a couple of criminals you thwarted, relatively safe. Then, all of a sudden... the dog pound. The sky is dark,the ground is an ominous blood red, there are no other animals or life (except for the creepy doberman chasing you), and then [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pS6E3omf_Q an ominous background music]] that seems there just to make you want to get out of there.
** Then there's the final level. Except for the noise of machines trying to gut your love interest, there's no music at all. [[OhCrap The only other place with no background music in the entire game is the pause screen.]]

* ''VideoGame/HollowKnight'' has plenty of locations like these, like Deepnest (dark underground cavern overloaded with BigCreepyCrawlies,) the Howling Cliffs (a desolate cliffside with intense winds said to drive people mad,) Kingdom's Edge (another desolate wasteland covered in ash-like cast-off pieces of the Wyrm's former shell, with a colosseum high above it from which dead gladiators are constantly falling out of,) the Ancient Basin (an ancient ruin even among ancient ruins, with no music at all and -- after acquiring a certain item -- [[NothingIsScarier not even any ambience]]) and [[spoiler: The Abyss, a sealed pit far below the Ancient Basin and the birthplace of both the protagonist and the titular Hollow Knight, covered in dead bodies and utter black pools of pure void that thrash about when the player gets near.]]

*** After the TimeSkip, the Hyrule Market Town becomes this. Once a bustling marketplace full of life and people, [[FisherKing under Ganondorf's iron-fisted rule]] it became [[{{Mordor}} a dark, desolate place]], roaming [=ReDeads=] its sole inhabitants.

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' has Hyrule Castle and the surrounding area. While the four Divine Beasts that serve as the other main dungeons can be a bit ominous, what with the backstories about how they were corrupted and the [[MadeOfEvil Malice]] filling their interiors, they're still brightly lit locations with musical tracks that mix ominousness with triumph. Hyrule Castle, however, is a bleak ruin dripping in Malice, all the plant life in the vicinity is grey and dead, the town at its base is sufficiently demolished to the point of barely being recognizable as a former settlement, deadly [[MechaMooks Guardians]] are ubiquitous, and all around are subtle signs of the massacre that took place a century before. There's also a more quotidian level of bleakness with [[spoiler:the diaries of Princess Zelda and her father King Rhoam, found at their respective desks in the castle. Both record how they felt plenty of fear, and Zelda plenty of shame, over Zelda's inability to awaken the sealing power needed to defeat Calamity Ganon, and how this was leading to their relationship being badly strained due to King Rhoam's tough approach to guiding Zelda's training. And the final entries of each were written the morning of the day Ganon returned.]]

** The game's main story has "A [[Franchise/DoctorWho Dalek]]-table Adventure", which has the main trio journey through a run-down facility filled with Cybermen, Weeping Angels, and, of course, Daleks, all of which are portrayed faithfully (for the most part).

** ''VideoGame/SuperMetroid'': Lower Maridia. It has a remarkably dark color palette for an underwater level, and the music is also very quiet and ominous.

** ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime3Corruption'' has the ''GFS Valhalla''. It is a derelict, ruined spaceship where everything is destroyed, most power sources are offline, the surrounding space is a bright-red nebula filled with floating debris (and sometimes ''hundreds of Metroids''), all the human and invading Space Pirate troopers onboard were killed violently, their corpses disintegrate into ashes when shot, powerful monsters infest the halls, and the music is a quiet and eerie atmospheric piece. At the end, you can witness [[spoiler:the ship's Aurora Unit describing the horrific fate of the ''Valhalla'' and itself]]. Definitely not a fun place to visit.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Okami}}'', the Sunken Ship, Yoshpet Forest, Sei-an City under the Blight, and most dungeons qualify, especially the last one.

* Though ''Videogame/HalfLife2'' is already quite bleak, the titular town of the chapter "We Don't Go To Ravenholm..." takes it to another level.
* The level "343 Guilty Spark" from ''VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved'', which follows immediately right after the cutscene ending the previous level, in which Cortana gives a disjointed warning to the Master Chief that the Covenant found something... buried, and that Keyes is about to unravel it. Arriving at the level, you're treated to a dark bog with lots of wrecked equipment and a [[ApocalypticLog eerie barely functioning distress call on repeat]]. The general lack of enemies in the beginning, and the fact that what enemies Chief encounters ''are'' ''fleeing in sheer panic and terror'' from the place you are heading towards, serves only to reinforce the quiet creepy factor as you stalk through the wrecked facility. In particular, the gradual realization that the terrified Covenant are not fighting (and largely getting slaughtered by) the two-dozen humans you were sent to rescue, but something else entirely that has [[BloodKnight the Covenant]] of all people [[OoCIsSeriousBusiness fleeing in terror]], and that the sole human survivor you actually find is so panic-driven from whatever it is he's seen that he ''shoots at you'', makes the build-up to TheReveal of the level extremely tense. When [[spoiler:the Flood]] finally do show up, you then must find another way out of the facility, except you now have to fight the horrific, unrelenting horde every step of the way--making the second half of the level a Bleak Level ''of the Bleak Level''.
* ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty 3'' has "The Mace" level, [[BattleInTheRain fought entirely in the rain]], where the Polish have to HoldTheLine on Mont Ormel/Hill 262/"The Mace" against hordes of German soldiers. The entire battle is just a desperate retreat up the hill as soldiers die left and right, culminating in a LastStand near a manor house at the top and [[spoiler: [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome the arrival]] [[BigDamnHeroes of Canadian]] [[TheCavalry reinforcements]]]]. Made even worse with the knowledge it all [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_262 happened]] in real life.

* Surface II from ''[[VideoGame/GoldenEye1997 GoldenEye]]'' is a more unsettling version of an earlier level. Instead of a well-lit setting with uptempo music as the first Surface was, Surface II takes place under a blood-red sky and has slower, more somber music. The masked guards from the first level are present again, and look much creepier in the murky conditions.

* ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'': The game's already bleak enough, with every place infected with deacy and ruin, but these areas take it up a notch.

** In the Rise of the Emperor storyline, Ziost becomes this when the surface is decimated by Darth Vitiate following the player's effort on there. While all organic life on the planet is shown to be destroyed in a cutscene, the surface is still inhabitable.

** Gilneas, especially in the initial Worgen starting experience before you get bitten.
** Felwood, which is like you took the Night Elf areas like Teldrassil and Ashenvale and filled it with plague and suspiciously green glowing stuff. The Ghostlands is the same for the Blood Elves.

** Duskwood, a forest infested with zombies and werewolves just across the river from the peaceful Elwynn Forest and a startling MoodWhiplash for new Human players. Everything in the zone is either dead or on constant watch from attack.
** Deadwind Pass, everything there is washed out gray, and the only things that are alive are vultures, giant spiders, and a clan of ogres. It's also home to the EldritchLocation known as Karazhan and the creepy crypt underneath it. The good news is that there really isn't any reason to stick around in the zone itself for very long.

** The [[TempleOfDoom temple levels]] "Temple Ruins" and "Jaws Of Darkness", taking place in abandoned, dark temples, where the only lumination are the lit fire torches in the background, filled with smashing traps, and accompanied with a foreboding, spooky soundtrack.

* ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry1'': Some of the caverns, especially when [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcklfVCEAcg "Life In the Mines"]] is playing.
* ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry2DiddysKongQuest'': [[BigBoosHaunt Gloomy Gulch]] in definitely lives up to its name. Crocodile Isle is not a friendly place in general, but Gloomy Gulch stands out as a dark and barren region high up on the mountain, surrounded by dead forests. Cementing this is the world's theme song [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYyMNXM8Kgg Forest Interlude]], which is much more downbeat and moody compared to the rest of the game's soundtrack.
* ''VideoGame/EarthwormJim''
** The "Big Bruty" level in the [[UpdatedRerelease Special Edition]] of the first game features the worm hero having to avoid being eaten by the eponymous creature, a blind dinosaur-esque monster with a strong sense of smell, in an unsettling and abandoned swamp planet, which is implied to have become abandoned due to the dinosaur-esque monster's eating habits. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUXrb8lJzz0 The music complements the stage perfectly]].

* ''VideoGame/{{Eversion}}'': The fourth eversion level turns the scenery gray and the enemies stop moving. Subsequent eversion levels only get nastier and darker, going from gray to brown to blood-red to practically pitch-black. And you ''will'' scream, even if you know about [[spoiler:THE HAND]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Futurama}}'' has [[SinisterSubway the Subway]]. To put it into context, the level before this took place in the sewers of New New York, and true to the show, the whole place has a campy horror vibe, being filled with [[GrimyWater glowing green waste]], cartoony mutants as enemies, and [[SewerGator alligators]], plus a very funky soundtrack. But then when you reach the ruined subway, everything turns [[RealIsBrown drab and brown]], the enemies are sinister-looking [[DisasterScavengers post-apocalyptic scavengers]] in [[GasMaskMooks gas masks]], and the music [[NothingIsScarier is completely gone]] -- replaced by an unsettling ambience which includes ''distant screaming''. The whole place seems more at home in a ''{{VideoGame/Fallout}}'' game than a ''Futurama'' game, and the weird thing is that it's the ''third level''. No other level later in the game comes even close to being this bleak, not even Old New York, which immediately follows it, or [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon MOM's HQ]] at the very end.

%%** Ballade's special stage in ''VideoGame/MegaMan10''. (ZCE)

* Eifer Skute's stage in ''VideoGame/{{Rosenkreuzstilette}} Freudenstachel'' is one, filled with the undead, a ghastly {{Expy}} of Mothraya from ''VideoGame/MegaMan4'', and creepy {{Ethereal Choir}}s.

** The BadFuture time zones in ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehogCD''. They are basically the current levels, but completely run down, with a dose of GaiasLament thrown in. Considering all the other timezones including the Good Futures are brightly coloured, this only serves to make them seem even more gloomy. The [[SoundtrackDissonance catchy music]] certainly helps.

* The entire world becomes this at the end of ''[[VideoGame/{{Tomba}} Tomba! 2: The Evil Swine Return]]''. Upon entering the final area, the BigBad casts a spell that causes the entire world to [[TimeStandsStill stop moving]] and [[DeliberatelyMonochrome be black and white]]. The end result: no enemies whatsoever, lots of black voids (this was a [=PS1=] game, and the draw distance combined with the lack of color causes this effect), and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y9uLrvswNg this "music"/ominous ambient noise]].

** There’s also the Deep Web, a BonusDungeon that runs on pure nightmare fuel.

** [[spoiler: [[IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace The Deadlands,]] ''the'' scariest area in the game. It's just an abandoned [[HumansAreCthulhu human]] house - except it's full of EldritchAbomination BossInMookClothing enemies as well as the Dead Lander Omega, a giant one-eyed monster that drops enemies on you whenever it sees you, seemingly for no reason other than [[JustToyingWithThem its own amusement]]. [[NothingIsScarier The absence of people is]] [[ParanoiaFuel never explained.]]]]

* ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'' has 2,300 AD, a time period AfterTheEnd, as well as the Ice Age-ravaged ground level in 12,000 BC.

* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'': The [[IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace Dead Trenches]] take it a few steps further. It starts out with ominous music and a dead city, includes some really creepy poetry from a traumatized dwarf, and ends with a boss whose origin and appearance are 190-proof BodyHorror. Congratulations! You now know where darkspawn come from. Chances are you really wish you didn't.

* While ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 4}}'' [[AfterTheEnd isn't]] the [[ScavengerWorld brightest]] picture of humanity, the underlying themes are hope and rebuilding; [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking even the color palette is happier than its predecessors']]. Then you go to the Glowing Sea, a haunted wasteland where the bomb meant for Boston actually hit. After 210 years, the ambient fallout is still lethal.[[note]]At least according to Doctor Amari; in-game it's a measly few rads per second and can be out-healed via Radaway and Rad-X.[[/note]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 76}}'' has the Ash Pile, where the majority of West Virginia's coal mining industry was centered. Twenty-five years of the machines running out of control since the Great War has caused this region to be coated in soot and ash, enough that entering the region without a gas mask means possibly contracting Sludge Lung disease. There are also areas that are eternally burning, especially old coal mines where flames have been burning nonstop for over two decades.

* Mag Mell is an odd example in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyCrystalChronicles''. A town instead of a dungeon, it nonetheless has some very unsettling music and is blanketed in fog and seemingly uninhabited when you first get there. If you revisit it enough times, though, you find out it's actually inhabited by hibernating carbuncles, who turn out to be not all that bad when they finally wake up. A more traditional example is Tida, a town who's caravan never returned home, and is now a miasma and monster-infested DungeonTown.

* Meanwhile, ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII2'' has [[spoiler:A Dying World and New Bodhum, both in 700AF.]]

* ''Videogame/FinalFantasyXV'' has [[spoiler: '''the entirety of Chapter 14.''']] The game already lets you know all bets are off the moment Noctis [[spoiler: steps out of Angelgard, [[OlderAndWiser a good ''ten years older'' at that,]] and seeing that the world has been plunged into TheNightThatNeverEnds. And just as one would expect, [[DemonicSpiders Daemons]] that the player once took solace in knowing only appeared at night have '''''completely overrun the world and drove humanity to near extinction, with the final bastions on the verge of collapse at that.''''' The sky that was once a vibrant blue and at least two towns the player once went through and enjoyed the sight of company and fellow humans are now [[AftertheEnd devoid of any and all life besides the murderous Daemons, with a heavy implication that the once our-world-level population has dwindled from billions to a mere city and a gas station's worth,]] with the sky now perpetually a sickly black-and-green combination with flecks of darkness falling like snow.]] And to top it all off, the only way to end this horrific nightmare is [[spoiler: to [[HeroicSacrifice have Noctis sacrifice himself]], alongside potentially the rest of the party, all to set the world right again and end this twisted perversion of the world.]]
* The ''King's Field'' series of games could all be considered this. There are sporadic villages with very few people, and even some of them contain monsters or abandoned houses. The music is hardly ever lively and a lot of the areas can feel claustrophobic and empty. Most conversations in the games are usually sad or morose, and many people have given up hope of being saved by the impending dark times. Even the environment itself seems dark or dimly lit, and you almost never see sunlight throughout the course of the games, even when outdoors. There are multiple graveyards and dead people in various locations. The monsters seem to outnumber the people 10-to-1.
* ''VideoGame/GoldenSunDarkDawn'' nails this trope with the [[ApocalypseHow Grave Eclipse]] that [[WhamEpisode sucks the light out of most of the world]], leaving some awesome [[SceneryGorn images]] of destroyed towns, complete with decomposing bodies.
* Your return trip to Cyrum Kingdom in ''VideoGame/GrandiaII'' fits this trope perfectly. The dead and dying are everywhere, and the dark god's minions just won't stop coming. All but one of your party members are stuck in HeroicBSOD mode (since it is, after all, partially their fault that this is happening) and no one has any idea what to do. Oh, and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V59gD1TVmJU THIS]] music is playing.

** The Depths of Darkness in ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts02BirthBySleepAFragmentaryPassage'' zigzag this. It's the most desolate area in the game, being a barren and empty cave with blue crystals providing the only light. While the ruins of the worlds are more spectacular, Aqua is all alone as she passes through them and the Realm of Darkness itself is trying to break her spirit. By the time she gets to the Depths of Darkness, she's teetering on the edge of despair. It's here that Mickey finds her and pulls her back from the brink and joins her as the game's sole party member, making it the most hopeful part of the game.
* ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords'' brings you back to Dantooine -- the pleasant farming planet from the first -- five years ''after'' Malak carpet-bombed the place. The farmers hate the Jedi and blame them for all their misfortune, mercenaries are running unchecked, the moss-overgrown Jedi enclave is being picked clean by thieves, and you get confirmation that most of the characters you encountered or liked died horribly in the attack.
* ''VideoGame/LostKingdoms'': the Burial Grounds level, and the final level, Broch Black.
* ''Franchise/MassEffect''
** Post-Virmire ''Normandy'' in ''VideoGame/{{Mass Effect|1}}''; there's even somber music. Also, the Normandy crash site in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2''.

*** Earth itself also qualifies, having been reduced to a grey, post-apocalyptic wasteland by the time Shepard gets there in the endgame. The whole mission has an aura of desperation as Shepard, his/her squadmates, and the rest of Hammer Squad race through London to get to the conduit, [[spoiler:with Shepard and Anderson being the only ones to make it to the beam]].

* ''VideoGame/{{Mother 3}}'' has the abandoned Clayman factory in chapter 7. In previous chapters it was quite lively, in addition to the rest of the game at that point. But here, it's empty save for a few scattered sentry robots, all the machines have stopped running, and there's a unique piece of music playing: a very dark and depressing remix of one of the first mini-boss themes in the game.

* ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'':
** ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga'':
*** Joke's End. In a game that takes place in the Beanbean Kingdom, whose culture in large part revolves around humor and which features regions with laughter-themed names like "Chucklehuck Woods" and "Teehee Valley", in comes this bleak [[SlippySlideyIceWorld icy level]] that is specifically stated to be a graveyard for bad jokes featuring some rather sinister music.
*** Woohoo Hooniversity. With a name like that, you might expect it to be cheery as the rest of the game. Nope, completely destroyed, broken down and overrun by freaks of science (strongly implied to be the ''mutated faculty'') and man-sized versions of the viruses from ''VideoGame/DrMario''.
** ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiPartnersInTime'':
*** Hollijolli Village. [[CutesyNameTown The name doesn't sound bleak]], but that's because the village is Christmas-themed. However, [[TwistedChristmas you never get to see it in its normal, "holly-jolly" state]]. By the time the Mario Bros. get there, [[SugarApocalypse it's been blasted to bits]] by [[AlienInvasion the Shroobs]], and all the friendly [=NPCs=] who live there are abducted, never to be seen again. All of this is set to what sounds like [[IronicNurseryTune a depressing rendition of Jingle Bells]] and ends with a HopelessBossFight.
*** Toad Town, an upbeat area in every other game it appears in, is a devastated wreck here. The whole place is covered with [[AlienKudzu purple mushrooms]] and [[DungeonTown infested with enemies]], and the only people that remain there are [[DungeonShop two shopkeepers]].
** ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiDreamTeam'':
*** Dreamy Mount Pajamaja Summit. While the lower areas of the mountain had goofy oom-pah music and featured the [[LargeHam ham-tacular]] [[HuskyRusskie Massif Brothers]], the summit has fairly depressing music, is mostly an ice level filled with drab colors and a fair lack of variety and which comes right in the middle of a PlotTunnel that takes place when the whole real world is stuck asleep and completely inaccessible.
*** Dreamy [[spoiler:Neo Bowser Castle]]. The regular [[spoiler:Neo Bowser Castle]] has an exciting intensity to its ominousness that keeps it from being too eerie, but the Dream World equivalent has nightmarish chains and [[spoiler:Bowser faces]] floating around and two musical tracks, a dirge-like one for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKCGDq4RVcM the main portion]] and a harsh electronic one for [[spoiler:[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAwK_k9NCSw Bowser's Dream]]]], that give it a very sinister vibe.
** ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiPaperJam''
*** Twinsy Tropics Dungeon is a literal dungeon where the heroes and several Toads are held prisoner, and the latter are forced into slave labor supervised by the Koopalings. When the Marios and Luigi make their escape, it becomes a weird NoGearLevel where they learn [[InterfaceScrew their Command Blocks]] have been confiscated and must track down the prison guards to get them back.
*** Luigi must sneak through the western section of Gloomy Woods, now haunted by Boos, on his own in a pseudo-StealthBasedMission, trying to find the two Marios (the second of which is held prisoner by King Boo himself, only freed during that battle).
** Twilight Town from ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'', which is a dark and dreary town filled with shadowy ragdoll-like citizens who are slowly being turned into pigs every time a bell rings. After a suspiciously early boss battle with a bedsheet-ghost character named [[spoiler:Doopliss]], the boss [[GrandTheftMe takes over Mario's body]] and leaves him as a ghostly shadow.
** ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario''
*** [[PlanetHeck The Underwhere]], despite its rather silly name, is far from pleasant. The place takes many cues from the Greek interpretation of the underworld, complete with its own version of the River Styx (a pink lake filled with disembodied hands called "River Twygz", complete with utterly terrifying gibbering in place of BackgroundMusic) and [[{{Expy}} Expies]] of Hades, Charon, and the Fates. The way Mario and friends initially get there is by being outright ''assassinated'' by Dimentio, who very cruelly averts NoSneakAttacks. Fortunately, most of the locals are pretty friendly, and a ''VideoGame/DragonQuest''-style RPG battle against a Cerberus {{Expy}} lightens the mood significantly.
*** Sammer's Kingdom, after [[spoiler:[[AfterTheEnd it's destroyed]] by the world being swallowed by darkness. There's little BackgroundMusic, and everything is [[WhiteVoidRoom a blank white]], with the only thing breaking up the monotony of the background being the occasional fragments of buildings, reduced to outlines. Presumably, this would be the fate of every world that falls to the Void]]. It gets better, but it's incredibly depressing while it lasts.
** ''VideoGame/PaperMarioColorSplash'' has [[spoiler:Black Bowser's Castle]]. While Prism Island is divided into sectors, themed on one of the colors of the rainbow with Port Prisma representing the entire visible light spectrum, this locaton and its associated locations have their color scheme based around black, and have a more serious tone than the rest of the game, with [[spoiler:Mario stopping a bomb factory that could coat the entire world in toxic black paint]].

** Lavender Town and Pokémon Tower in particular from ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue''. A dreary funeral town with a graveyard for Pokémon with eerie {{Creepypasta}}-inspiring music, Ghost-Types disturbing possessed trainers, and restless Pokémon spirits.
** Mt. Pyre from ''VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire''. New Mauville, an abandoned power facility, uses the same bleak music, and definitely fits in the remakes, where the implications are that Wattson pulled the plug on the project [[spoiler: because it was being powered with the life energy of Pokémon.]] The Abandoned Ship (Sea Mauville in the remakes), a shipwreck with a surprisingly dark backstory [[StoryBreadcrumbs if you know where to look]].

** The Strange House in ''VideoGame/PokemonBlack2AndWhite2'', which is haunted by the ghost of a young girl who is strongly implied to have died in an incident involving Darkrai. The house is dark and spooky, and the furniture rearranges itself to force you to take a certain path.

** ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne'' turns the entire city of Tokyo transformed into this by [[ApocalypseHow the Conception]]. Humanity's dead, save for a few (who are rapidly driven to insanity), the few remaining buildings are separated by vast swathes of sand, demons are crawling everywhere, and an alien sun shines above.

** ''VideoGame/TalesOfXillia'' sends the player onto the E.S.S. Zenethra that was overtaken by Exodus, a terrorist group, and the symmetrical and low-saturated color design of the place makes for an uncomfortable atmosphere. And then the area ends with [[spoiler: Milla's senseless sacrifice]].
** ''VideoGame/TalesOfXillia2'' has another ship, which couples this as a very harsh CallBack to the [[VideoGame/TalesOfXillia previous]] game's above example, right down to a similar, bleak design. The player can and needs to save various injured [=NPCs=] within a time limit, one of your party members is having an [[CloningBlues existential crisis]] and the chapter ultimately ends with [[spoiler: Alternate Milla's death, similar to Milla's death above]].

** If you go for the No Mercy route, you slowly turn ''the entire game'' into one gigantic bleak level. All the trademark wackiness is slowly drained from the game as the player murders all the goofy enemy encounters to extinction, the save points where the protagonist is filled with determination through strange, innocuous things around them are simply replaced with the number of enemy encounters left and then a flat "Determination" once you've wiped them all out, the colorful [=NPCs=] are almost completely absent and even the various puzzles are already solved once you get to them, as everyone is running like hell to get away from the genocidal psycho. Even the music becomes slowed down to the point of creepiness, and you get a special, equally-creepy song through the entire region once you've cleared it out. [[spoiler: By the end of the game, the First Child erases the entire world from existence, leaving nothing but a black, windswept void until you offer your soul to them in exchange for restoring everything.]]

* VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}}'s Old Miltia, after the Federation's siege becomes an open assault. Also the ruins of the Ormus' homeworld, Michtam.

* The Morgue section of Stage 5 of ''VideoGame/{{Illbleed}}'', which perfectly showcases just how terrible the titular park really is. Despite the name, it's not really a "morgue" as much as it is a series of catwalks suspended over an ''olympic swimming pool-sized pit filled to the brim with the bodies of dead park visitors.''

* ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' has The End, a parallel dimension of pale stone islands in an unsettling void populated by [[Franchise/TheSlenderManMythos alien horrors]]. A slight change of tone for a game primarily known for being about punching trees and building statues out of brightly colored wool.

* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'''s fourth Cobra battle with "The Sorrow". Snake is forced to wade through a waist-high mangrove swamp during downpour, while the boss and [[WhatMeasureIsAMook the ghosts of every person the player has killed thus far]] tries to kill Snake. Considering everything goes from [[SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism campy/realistic to gritty/grim in a few scenes]], ''creepy is an understatement''.

** ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'' includes an enormous white castle owned by [[HumanoidAbomination Organization XIII]], located in a place called The World That Never Was. Made eerier by the dissonant nature of the music and the overtly nihilistic names of its locations ("Altar of Naught", "Where Nothing Gathers"...)

** The Face Shrine in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaLinksAwakening''. It's a one-two punch of the smaller South and the actual dungeon in the North Shrine, the one in the south giving the first concrete hint that your adventure is AllJustADream, and then the boss of the one in the north confirming that yes, the island is all a dream, and as such [[DreamApocalypse you're going to have to do a rather nasty thing to it and its inhabitants to leave]].
** ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Ocarina of Time]]'':

** Lower Maridia from ''VideoGame/SuperMetroid''. It has a remarkably dark color palette for an underwater level, and the music is also very quiet and ominous.
** The [[RuinsForRuinsSake Chozo Ruins]] in the first ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime'' are set in a [[ShiftingSandLand desert-like biome]], [[SceneryGorn the structures are heavily decrepit]], the music is eerily quiet, [[GrimyWater the water is corrosive]] due to the toxins secreted by the ManEatingPlant boss Flaahgra, and most of the plants are dead thanks to said toxic water.

* ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'': The game's already bleak enough, with every place infected with deacy and ruin, but these areas take it UpToEleven

* ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'':

** The Painted World of Ariamis also counts, being a ruined castle on a freezing mountain, infested with undead and Crow Demons.

* Gilneas in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', especially in the initial worgen starting experience before you get bitten.

** While the Western Plaguelands are an active warzone, filled with armies of undead just barely held in check by mortal forces, the Eastern Plaguelands beyond them are strangely quiet. The wildlife is depressed where it isn't mutated; roving bands of things assault you, even on the roads, and in a world of saturated color, the sky is browner than the soil.

* ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'' has the Dead Sea, a futuristic city where [[TimeCrash time is essentially broken]]. You can walk on [[GiantWallOfWateryDoom the waves destroying the buildings]] like they're solid, ghostly echoes of living beings are common enemies seen walking in fixed looping patterns, and in the center of it all is the [[IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace Tower of Geddon]], [[AlienGeometries an impossiblea collage of building interiors and locations]]. It's every bit as eerie as it sounds.

%%(ZCE)* ''VideoGame/EarthBound1994'''s final level, the Cave of the Past.